How Long Is “Soft Materials”?

“What fascinates me [about film],” says Daria Martin, “is the essential contradiction of the medium: its layered ephemeral and sensual aspect, its articulation of psychological projection together with a necessary physical realization of fantasy. The camera, circling around or brushing close to constructed sets, props, faces, and bodies, caresses these material elements, intimately describes their sculptural surfaces, and yet, paradoxically, when these images are projected as a beam of light, they become transparent, their heft subtracted. I want to play at seducing the viewer while allowing escape routes from the game. My implementation of certain ideals – primary colors, mechanical or athletic bodies, geometric sets, smooth skinned faces – is always tempered by the presence of something a little more awkward: shadows, seams, aging, exhaustion.”.